GreenPages Benefitting From Cloud Solutions Demand

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GreenPages CEO Ron Dupler Monday said the $100 million national solution provider is seeing a turnaround as a result of its big bet on cloud computing.

"In 2010, the first half of the year, we see things rebounding significantly," said Dupler in a keynote address before 109 IT executives at the Kittery, Maine headquartered company's 14th annual Solutions Summit. "We have seen a lot of work right now with infinite market demand for skilled people who know how to deploy virtualization and cloud technologies. This (virtualization and cloud) trend is picking up. We are very bullish right now on the market and where we sit."

GreenPages is positioned well for the cloud solution wave, Dupler said, because of its status as one of the top virtualization and cloud technology advisers in the country. "We've watched those trends and proactively capitalized on them in the last few years," he said. "In 2010, we find ourselves with a great team of technologists. Make no mistake about it: our product is the smart people in the organization." About half of GreenPages' 170 employees are technologists, he said.

GreenPages technology summit this year at the Sheraton Harborside in Portsmouth, N.H. is focused squarely at helping customers make the move to the cloud with the theme: Brave New World Cloud Computing: From Definition To Delivery.

GreenPages is widely regarded as one of virtualization leader VMware's top partners and has partnered closely with VMware, EMC and Cisco on their cloud alliance known as the Virtual Computing Environment coalition. GreenPages is, in fact, one of a select group of partners qualified to sell and support the coalitions Vblock infrastructure packages.

GreenPages' turnaround comes after what Dupler called a challenging time for all technology solution providers in the corresponding period one year ago. The turnaround began in the second half of 2009 with business up 20 percent compared with the first six months of the year, said Dupler.

GreenPages used the downturn to sharpen its cloud focus and beef up its professional services capabilities with the acquisition last November of the VAR division of Boston-based Managed Technology Partners (MTP), said Dupler. That deal added 40 top engineers to the GreenPages staff, as well as a comprehensive suite of managed services offerings.

Doron Kempel says selling hyper-convergence can be challenging for solution providers, but success will come from taking business from competitors that are unprepared or hesitant to embrace the technology.